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THE OBSERVER | Saturday, January 23, 2010
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»13 VOLUME 15, ISSUE 03
SATURDAY, January 23, 2010
www.ObserverXtra.com www.ObserverXtra
Mission members still hope to aid Haitians Earthquake that claimed Yvonne Martin hasn’t dampened the resolve of surviving members of mission team It was like being in a canoe on a rolling ocean. When the earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, Marilyn McIlroy, Deb Paton and Lois McLaughlin were standing on a third-floor balcony overlooking their guest house. “Get down!” McLaughlin called as the balcony heaved beneath their feet. The three women were thrown around like rag dolls, and McIlroy began praying out loud. Sitting beside the pool, Marilyn Raymer, Alice Soeder and Laura Steckley were tossed back and forth in their deck chairs. Water slopped out of the pool and soaked their legs. Very quickly, the women realized they needed to get away from the building. The wall was cracked and pieces of cement were falling onto the aluminum awning above them. They scrambled over the wall that surrounded the
PHOTO | jOni milTenburg
JONI MILTENBURG
BACK ON SOLId GROUNd marilyn mcilroy, Alice Soeder and marilyn raymer were relieved to return home after going through the destructive earthquake in Haiti last week. They were part of a local mission group that arrived in the country just before disaster struck.
compound and a few minutes later, the trio from the balcony joined them. That was when they realized that the seventh member of the group, Yvonne Martin, was missing. She had gone inside to change and was in the guest house when it collapsed. Looking at the five foot-high pile of rubble where the twostorey building had stood, they knew she was somewhere in there. “It just pancaked,” Raymer said. “I knew right from the beginning that Yvonne could not possibly have gotten out.” Raymer, Soeder and McIlroy sat around Soeder’s kitchen table Tuesday, piecing together the events around the magnitude-7 quake. The seven women were in Haiti to set up clinics in rural villages in the northern part of the country. McIlroy and Raymer are both nurses from Elmira and Steckley is from Bamberg. McLaughlin, a doctor, has a practice in Waterloo. Paton is See HAITI page »02
Woolwich property taxes to climb by 4.48% Average bill to go up $23 a year; big jumps approved for water and wastewater charges in 2010 STEVE KANNON Having opted against developing part of Victoria Glen Park, Woolwich will instead cover the $1.5-million shortfall by borrowing more money to pay for its recent building spree. That move will increase taxes by another 0.79 per cent, put-
ting the tax rate hike at 4.48 per cent for 2010. The jump will add $23.46 to the Woolwich portion of the average tax bill, based on a home valued at $214,000. The budget tentatively approved by township council Tuesday night includes a 1.69 per cent increase in the basic tax rate and a two-per-cent
special levy for capital facilities. This is the last year of that program. Also approved was a waterrate increase of 7.26 per cent, to $1.33 per cubic metre from $1.24. That represents about a $16- to $22-per-year jump for the average household. The wastewater rate will climb by 10.1 per cent, to $1.63 per cu-
bic metre from $1.48, adding about $27 to $36 per year to the average annual cost. Much of the water and wastewater cost increases are based on similar jumps in costs charged to the township by the Region of Waterloo, explained treasurer Richard Petherick. While the cumulative ef-
fect of the budget increase is almost 4.5 per cent, chief administrative officer David Brenneman noted the basic increase, leaving aside the capital building requirements, is 1.69 per cent, much closer to the Consumer Price Index, currently hovering around one per cent. See BUDGET page »02